


feed it to lions

by monarchs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Character Study, Color Blindness, Gryffindors - Freeform, Hogwarts Era, Insomnia, Light Angst, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 21:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18903271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monarchs/pseuds/monarchs
Summary: Mark thinks back on sleepless nights.(Or, the one where they're all Gryffindors, and at least two of them have no idea why.)





	feed it to lions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauqo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauqo/gifts).



> This isn't beta'd -- all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Warnings for: underage alcohol consumption, and the weird ass lack of British English in an HP!au.
> 
> Chinese translation by conniepen available [here](http://estelleggy.lofter.com/post/1d0eb9ea_1c5dfddd7).

Sleep didn't come easy.

Tonight was one of those nights. 

Mark closed his eyes and thought back, conjured up all the times he had trouble falling asleep. 

Nights where he would lie awake, thoughts swirling, whistling like a hurricane in the quiet of the dark; his finger slowly tracing unknown spells in the air.

* * *

There was that night before his first trip to Hogwarts. Randi had just ruffled his hair and he tried to get her hand out of it, feigning displeasure. She had told him not to be too excited, that he needed the sleep, that the train ride was long, that there was so much to come. He had climbed into bed, kicked off the blanket, hugged his pillow to his chest.

Spent that entire night pondering over the question Arielle had brought up at dinner that evening. 

_What if you don't get into the house you want, Mark?_

He could still imagine how his father's expression had softened. He could still hear his father saying, _what you want makes who you are_.

It was his way of saying, _don't worry, what will be, will be_.

* * *

Mark shouldn't have worried so much about houses – no one should have. But he was eleven. It was only natural he did.

His own home was filled with blue and bronze, hand-me-down scarves, moving portraits of eagles and ravens. And there were walls of bookshelves, heritage of knowledge, reverence for wisdom. There was no way for him not to have any expectations, not to have a few (preconceived) dreams of his own.

* * *

Mark couldn't even properly _see_ the red of the Gryffindor flags all that well.

It didn't look all that different from the Slytherin colors. 

It didn't feel all that right in his hands when his house tie was handed to him.

(But no one complained about being placed into Gryffindor. 

It was the house of heroes. The house that had won the war. The house of courage and bravery, whatever those were, whatever those were really worth.

So he didn't complain. He lived with it. Hoped that one day things would explain themselves.)

* * *

(Like a gullible child waiting to be fooled he had told the Sorting Hat: _what you want makes who you are_.)

* * *

Big dreams could keep a person up all night. But sometimes feeling incredibly misplaced could keep one up too.

 

There was that night he cuddled his wrinkly copy of _Quintessence: A Quest_ to bed. He traced circle patterns on its cover idly, wondering if there was a charm to get rid of the soak stains, if there was a spell that could reverse the trails of ink that streamed from its smeared words.

(His own housemates had done this to him.)

Mark spent that night wondering what it was like, being with people he could understand, people who could understand him. 

(Donna had just gotten into Hogwarts and joined Randi in the safety of the Ravenclaw common room, found her second family there.)

Mark had wondered all night if he'd ever find a second family.

* * *

Things were better in his third year.

Mark had new roommates (as per request): Chris, some levelheaded guy who always knew the answers in _History of Magic_ ; Dustin, a cheery guy who liked wooing girls with his proficiency (or lack thereof?) in Charms; Billy, the one who was always dozing off in class and making Gryffindors lose points on a daily basis. Or hourly basis. Depended on the day, or on how much Chocolate frogs he ate before (not) sleeping.

Mark remembered the first night with them. He had been sitting at the window sill, a book ( _Wizard's Chess: Ancient Trust Charms_ ) open in his lap, pretending to read while he listened to them discuss Muggle films they had seen during the summer.

 

Eduardo had been there too, leaning against one of the posts of Chris's bed, hair fluffy, smile a little disproportionate, face so much brighter and younger, brimming with cheery optimism Mark sort of missed. 

(Eduardo was childhood friends with Dustin because their Muggle parents worked in the same Muggle company.)

He had pointed at Mark's book, his other hand loosening his tie that had been neatly tucked into his ironed uniform, even after a long day, and said, "do you play?"

 

(Mark did play. But Mark lost both games that night.

He would have been annoyed by it, but Eduardo had looked at him apologetically, a soft smile on his face when he said _good game, night, guys_ and left for his own room up the stairs, so Mark dropped it.

"Oh, Marky Mark lost! _Twice!_ "

"Don't rub it, Dustin," Chris warned.

"Yeah, man, he'll AK us while we sleep," Billy said around a yawn and a hiccup.

"Don't be ridiculous, that wouldn't be Gryffindor-like," Mark said, shrugging, before turning Dustin's pillow into stone.

 

Mark didn't sleep that night. He was lying on his side, going through Eduardo's moves over and over in his head, trying to find the nexus between the chess set and its player, the way his Wizard's chess book had suggested.

He found himself thinking about Eduardo's smile instead.)

* * *

Little did he know he had found someone a little more than just second family, that night.

* * *

During the summer between Mark's fourth and fifth year, Eduardo had come over to the Zuckerberg house.

He had just gotten an Outstanding on the Arithmancy O.W.L. exam (he was the only one of his grade), and they wanted to celebrate, out in the grass field, starry sky overhead.

Mark had swiped one of his father's bottles of Firewhiskey, and, sitting down next to Eduardo, passed the bottle casually, felt something warm in his chest when Eduardo had looked at him, grinning ear to ear.

"Just one bottle?" Eduardo asked, soft words in the wind.

"I'm not seventeen yet," Mark reasoned curtly, tugging his knees against his chest.

"Neither am I."

"We're celebrating your O in Arithmancy."

"You singlehandedly created a complex _charm_ in your fourth year. No one's ever done that before."

"Either you drink it, or you don't," Mark said, mildly grumpy.

Eduardo let out a laugh. "Okay, well. I'm game if you are."

They stared at each other for a while, listening to crickets and the distant laughter coming from the Zuckerberg house.

Finally, as he was growing impatient, Mark grabbed the bottle from Eduardo – who looked very pleased at this point – took a swig and passed it back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He stared down at the horizon, feeling warm already. The drink trailblazed through his system slowly, taking several minutes before trickling to nothing.

Eduardo looked at the bottle, then at Mark, then at the same horizon Mark was staring at, before taking a swig himself.

* * *

Mark met Erica when Beauxbatons students came over to Hogwarts for a new charity event the school was holding, at the beginning of his sixth year.

Somehow, she had taken a liking to him, seemed to love his snarky comments and tongue-in-cheek humor. Feeling a little courageous, and a little pompous when he realized how jealous his housemates were of him, he played along with her, tried to impress her with everything he knew.

She kissed him after he led her up the Astronomy Tower, a little past curfew.

He hadn't planned for it. 

He really just wanted to show her the stars.

* * *

She didn't look at the stars. She looked at him like _he_ was the stars.

* * *

It took her three months to realize he was anything but stellar. It took him three months to realize he never really saw stars in her eyes.

* * *

He wouldn't say he took it badly. It wasn't really about breaking up with Erica when he (stress-)created a new charm – one that made pictures of girls from Beauxbatons and Hogwarts appear on a piece of parchment, for the guys to rank and compare.

* * *

Eduardo had looked up at him from his Muggle meteorology textbook, when Mark came back at the end of a long rainy night (the Gryffindors had lost half of their house points because all the guys had supported him in the endeavor, but Mark was the only one who had to apologize to every single girl in both schools).

Eduardo looked right at him and murmured, concerned, "are you okay?"

Mark shrugged, falling face flat onto his bed. He didn't feel so good somewhere in his gut, but somehow, it didn't really matter. 

Eduardo walked over, placed a hand on Mark's shoulder, gingerly, and squeezed. Like he was promising something, something soothing.

* * *

Mark hadn't been appointed prefect that year. Any year.

And Eduardo had become Head Boy in his last.

He became busier and busier, disappeared for hours on end. Mark wouldn't envy that. He wouldn't envy him at all.

He himself spent countless nights perfecting a charm – something that would be far better and much more sophisticated than the Granger Protean Charm. And that kept him busy, kept him from thinking too much about how lonely he felt, sometimes.

* * *

He'd never tell Eduardo, but once, Mark stole his scarf, shoved it under his pillow, hoped that Eduardo would come looking for it, sooner or later.

He didn't sleep that night, he couldn't – the scarf smelled too strongly of Eduardo. 

Mark would imagine him, leaning against Chris's bedpost, looking out happily at the snow outside, asking Mark how his day had gone, asking if he needed help on Arithmancy, asking if he had even eaten yet. 

And it was jarring – to say the least.

* * *

He told Eduardo about the Better Protean Charm he was working on, one night.

(Eduardo hadn't noticed the missing scarf, but he probably noticed that he wasn't spending as much time with Mark as he used to and was trying to make up for it by stopping by Mark's room sometimes, before his nightly duties.)

Mark shrugged it off, like he had never missed Eduardo's presence, like he didn't realize Eduardo had been gone. Told him, instead, that he would need a sizeable amount of galleons to really kickstart his project. Make it something bigger.

Eduardo had looked at him solemnly, mysteriously, before saying, _okay_. 

He said it with a weary smile, and it made something in Mark's chest feel tight.

* * *

Mark had forgotten about time. He was trying to work on his charm, at the top of the Astronomy Tower, sat on the cold hard floor, his wand pointed at a stubborn sheet of parchment. The moon was high in the sky, and bats flitted distantly, screeching sometimes whenever Mark's charm backfired, the parchment bursting into flames.

Eduardo, being Eduardo, or Head Boy on patrol duties, had approached him from behind, shaking his head (Mark could practically _hear_ it), sighing and then saying, "Mark, I really don't want to take off points from my own house if I can help it. You know I am under the obligation of taking off thirty right now, for what you're doing?"

"Roundabout way to tell me it's past my bedtime."

" _Mark_."

"Five minutes." Mark's parchment blew up in flames again. His wand dropped onto the floor as he scrambled to his burning project and Vanished it promptly, murmuring an irate _Evanesco_.

"I've known you long enough to know that your five minutes means five _centuries—_ ," Eduardo stopped short, eyes dilating. "Wait. Did you just Vanish your bonfire wandlessly?"

 _Five centuries_ , Mark rolled his eyes. "No, I Vanished it with _my wand discarded on the ground_." He bent down to pick up said wand and used his uniform to clean the dust off it.

When Mark looked up, Eduardo was still gaping at him like he had grown a second head. 

After a beat, he finally said, rubbing the skin between his eyes. "Mark, only two people in my grade managed the spell _with a wand_ back in sixth year."

Mark shrugged. He took the opportunity while Eduardo was distracted by his wandless magic, to continue on with his Better-than-Granger's Protean Charm.

Eduardo sat down next to Mark, sighing again and clearly giving up on dragging him back to the Gryffindor tower. Mark flicked his wand idly at a new piece of parchment he had produced, and, after a few long minutes of silence, he scratched the back of his neck sheepishly before turning to look at Eduardo.

Eduardo looked a little worse for wear as he surveyed the nocturnal view, at the lake, where the reflection of the moon rippled lightly. He then relaxed his shoulders, shut his eyes, and indulged in the soothing bath of moonlight.

* * *

It had taken Mark's breath away.

That night, sleepless, Mark thought of Eduardo, thought about the way light curved around his eyes, nose and lips. 

It was more magical than anything magic could ever achieve.

* * *

Inspiration hit Mark for the following weeks, and he didn't stop working on his charm. Something Dustin had said had given him an idea too, and as a thank you, he had restored Dustin's stone pillow back to the fluffiness it used to be.

* * *

The night Mark finally finished his charm was the happiest night of his life.

(It didn't even matter to him that he had flunked some of his OWLs on the same day).

He had the biggest smile in the world, or so he was told (it freaked Dustin out especially), and he wasn't going to let anyone or anything rain on his parade.

* * *

He didn't think this feeling of accomplishment, the adrenaline of victory, could be topped by anything at all. If someone had asked, he would have said he wouldn't exchange it for anything in the world.

* * *

But the kiss he shared with Eduardo, at the top of the Astronomy Tower, the night of Eduardo's last day at Hogwarts—

That was something else.

* * *

It was like pieces falling into place, finally making sense.

* * *

One would think a Gryffindor (or two) would have had the courage to figure it out sooner, to make a move about it sooner.

Eduardo's lips had tasted like moonlight. Soothing and replenishing. 

And Mark had liked seeing Eduardo with his eyes closed, leaning into Mark's touch, the weary lines on his face fading away as if Mark was, had always been, his secret elixir of life.

* * *

Mark would trade anything, anything at all, for that moment, for that first kiss, for that feeling of wholeness.

* * *

"Come over for the summer," Eduardo said, when morning came around. They hadn't slept at all, they had spent the night kissing, talking, fucking, talking, holding hands, bumping noses, feeling silly.

His forehead was pressed against Mark's, a timid smile on his lips. Mark kissed it, kissed until it wasn't timid anymore, until there was nothing but bravery in its rawest form on Eduardo's face.

* * *

Eduardo had never invited anyone to his house.

They planned it out for the second half of the break, in case it went bad and would ruin their summer. In the meantime, Eduardo port-keyed out to Mark's place mostly. Sometimes they met at Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, but they still preferred the open grass field outside Mark's house.

It was like a sanctuary. A secret place for them to hide from the world.

* * *

Tonight in that field of summer, Firewhiskeys in their hands, Mark told Eduardo he wanted to drop out of Hogwarts.

They stayed quiet; emotions sky high, gazes low— near the ground.

Eduardo looked like he wanted to say too many things at the same time, and couldn't figure out which to say first. Mark drank from his bottle, waited for Eduardo to sort it out. 

After a long moment, Eduardo smiled sadly. "Mark— I have an internship overseas," he paused, "my father got it for me. It's… you know. Meteorology related. Under the MWE committee."

Mark stayed very still, something dropping in his chest. His leg went numb, and he swallowed dry, "That. Sounds good, Wardo."

"Yeah," Eduardo said, soft and small, nodding oddly, mostly at himself. "I suppose."

Mark waited for an explanation, but none came. He looked up, and realized instead, that the explanation was in Eduardo's eyes.

"But I'm not going," Eduardo murmured, blinking, looking away before looking back with fickle determination, in a kind of attempt to reassure Mark. It only made Mark frown. 

There was tightness in Eduardo's jaw, tension in his shoulders. His brows were knit together, hard and tired; he was tapping his finger nervously against the glass of his bottle.

 

People said Mark never noticed these small things.

* * *

Mark knew— intuitively—that he couldn't let Eduardo make the wrong choice.

* * *

Sleep didn't come easy.

Tonight was one of those nights.

They were lying on Mark's bed, face to face, on their sides, their arms and legs tangled, their fingers touching lightly. 

Eduardo had fallen asleep. Reaching out to tuck an unruly hair behind his ear, Mark stared, maybe smiled. Ruefully. He edged closer to Eduardo, pressed his forehead against the other's, shushing Eduardo when Eduardo stirred. He pulled the blanket over Eduardo's shoulder and then lay still, breathing steadily, evenly, listening to his slowing heart.

* * *

Maybe tonight, he thought, he would finally understand those distant words his father said.

 

 _What you want makes who you are_.

 

He shut his eyes, held onto Eduardo's hand tighter, and _imagined_ the colours, red and gold, the way they should look.

 

 

 

 

The way they should have always looked, to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [Two Lights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luMUdxWjis4) by Five for Fighting and [open arms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJV71cW40OQ) by elbow. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you liked it? #reviveTSN2k19.


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